NowThis, however, says that the relaunch is independent
of Facebook's decision and had been in the works for six
months.

In early 2015, NowThis went all-in on a distributed Media model,
shutting down its website in favor of publishing all of its
content directly on social media platforms such as Facebook and
Instagram.

Nearly three years since, the Group Nine Media-owned publisher
has reinstated its website. The revamped NowThisNews.com site went live on
Wednesday, Business Insider has learned.

A pioneer of millennial-focused, short-form video content,
NowThis has long argued that a destination website is not the
primary vehicle for reaching younger news consumers.

But as the company's brand and audience has grown and evolved
over the years, it made sense for it to have its own content hub.
A website relaunch was six months in the works, according to the
publisher.

"It (shutting the website down in 2015) was a strategic decision
based on where we were as a company in the early stages of our
lifecycle, when it was hard for publishers to drive audiences to
a website and even harder to do so as a new entrant," NowThis
president Athan Stephanopoulos told Business Insider. "We have
grown tremendously since then in terms of both our audience and
the volume and range of content we produce, so it made sense to
house all of that great work on a website."

A website would also be welcome by its brand partners, said
Stephanopoulos, as it gives them a chance to run sponsored
content on yet another channel. The publisher works with
several brands as a part of NowThis Studios, which creates brand
content on their behalf and has also developed co-branded
channels in partnership with some of them.
In December, for instance, it launched NowThis Food with
Campbell's.

But relaunching its website doesn't mean that NowThis will pull
back from social media platforms, including Facebook. In fact,
December 2017 was NowThis' top-performing month on the channel,
said Stephanopoulos.

"We still see ourselves as a distributed media publisher," said
Stephanopoulos."It's not about forsaking one in favor of
another — it's not an either-or situation, it’s an and-and
situation."

This post has been updated.

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